


Trouble Comes in Pairs, and it's Not Always Bad

by Omegarose



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Original Trilogy
Genre: Alpha Han Solo, Canon Divergence, Chaos Twins, Childbirth, Eventual Fix-It, F/M, M/M, Mpreg, Omega Leia Organa, Omega Luke Skywalker, Omegaverse, Pack Dynamics, Polyamory, Pregnancy, SO, Stormtrooper feels, THIS IS SO DRAMATIC, Tatooine Slave Culture, Tatooine Slave Culture (Star Wars), a/b/o dynamics, and turn around like "oops sorry", and very chaotic, because he was nice to them, because otherwise his reform doesn't count, but it's clearly marked, but like, but not in the weird over the top way, graphic depictions of birth, heavily featured in part 2, i have a weird obsession with hearing and reading about it, i have never had a baby before, i usually stick with clone wars stuff so idk what this is, i'm glossing over it but this literally ends the empire, it's probably decently accurate, lando uses they/them pronouns, like that's not how it works, lots of pov switches, things are sort of crappy for omegas, vader ends the empire because of love, vader has a bunch of really loyal stormtroopers, vader is SUFFERING over his mistakes, you cant just murder a bunch of kids, you have to have remorse, you know
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-15
Updated: 2020-11-03
Packaged: 2021-03-01 16:47:10
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 18,256
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23660293
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Omegarose/pseuds/Omegarose
Summary: Everything always happens to the Skywalkers. Anything that can go bad will. Not enough to kill them--never, no, Skywalkers were special in the galaxy, nigh unkillable--but enough to complicate things. Maybe those complications could be for the better.((Or chaos twins drag Han along for the ride, none of which he really asked to be apart of, but he's not going anywhere.))
Relationships: Leia Organa & Luke Skywalker, Leia Organa/Han Solo, Luke Skywalker/Han Solo
Comments: 21
Kudos: 161
Collections: Favorite Rereads





	1. Part One

**Author's Note:**

> Cw for talk of slavery and graphic depictions of birth.

When Luke saw the smoldering remains of his aunt and uncle, his stomach dropped.

This had been the only home he’d ever known, his life had been lived _here_. He might have wanted to leave, but he had never expected to never be able to come home. 

He didn’t know what to do without his aunt and uncle. He’d never even been to Mos Eisley before, much less by himself. 

By himself...he was all by himself.

Luke Skywalker, the first born-free of his line, an unmated and unclaimed omega, was all by himself. 

He fell to his knees, terrified for his future. Everyone knew what happened to unmated or unclaimed omegas on Tatooine. Throughout the entirety of the Outer Rim. They had no protection until someone took them as a mate, or someone else claimed them as part of their household. Anybody and everyone had a claim to lone omegas: slavers, strangers, brothels. Most likely, even if Luke stayed out in the desert and kept a low profile, he would eventually be picked up by the Hutts.

Ben Kenobi’s hand fell onto Luke’s shoulder.

“I’m alone,” Luke gasped out. Even dampened by the dry heat of the desert and the sand blowing all around them, he could still smell his own rotting devastation and despair.

“It will be alright.”

“I’m _alone_ ,” Luke repeated, glaring through his tears up at the old man. Surely he had to know why Luke was so upset, beyond the understandable loss of his family, surely no one could be so naïve.

“I will claim you, it will be alright.”

Luke shuddered on a sob—a sob of mourning for his dead aunt and uncle, of realization for the shakiness of his future, of relief.

“It might take a little while, but you will be alright. Eventually.”

Luke didn’t know if he believed Ben. There was a truth to it, maybe, but also a distance. It would eventually be alright, but when? Months? Years? Decades? Centuries, long after Luke was dead and no more than an absent name on a few old records?

He went with Ben when he urged them towards Mos Eisley. He had no other choice, not really.

~~~

Han didn’t know what to do with the people and droids he was helping to transport to Alderaan.

The old man was either a species that didn’t have castes, despite his extreme likeness to the average human, or he had some way to repress it. He went on about the Force and the long dead Jedi. It was bad luck to talk about the Jedi, everyone with any sense that could remember the time they served the Republic knew that, whether you believe their loyalties had turned or not. His name, too, was strangely familiar, though Han couldn’t place exactly where he’d heard it before...

The golden protocol droid had an interesting personality, wrapped up in more anxiety than most sentients, and the little astro-droid combatted the anxiety of his companion with sheer level of sass. Odd to see older droids like them with a core personality like that. Usually the levels of mind wipes they’d have at the point would screw up their servers, not to mention the strangeness for them to be in such good condition for a dustball like Tatooine.

It was the cute little omega that interested Han, truly. He was young—barely an adult, if one would consider nineteen standard an adult. He dressed like one of the moisture farmers, and acted like he’d never been in the city. He’d definitely never been off-planet before. He was also carrying a satchel that looked to be filled with all his worldly possessions, when Han’d gotten a peak at it when the omega had gone digging through it.

The entire situation was strange—something out of a holodrama with a daring rescue mission of a ransomed princess, even if neither of the humans seemed to be the type to have ties to a princess.

But pay was pay, especially when the other option was being enslaved by Jabba to “pay off” his debts.

~~~

Han jumped them into hyperspace and they were moving _away-away-away_ from the destroyed _planet_ and the ship with _Darth Vader_ , who had been trying to kill all of them.

How had a simple transport job turned into this.

The omega _((Luke, his name was Luke and he’d just lost what Han was pretty sure was the closest thing he had to family left))_ and the princess _((another omega, pretty as her station might make one think, who had literally just lost her entire_ **_world_** _))_ were getting cleaned up. Chewie had gone to show them the sonic, and to dig up something else they could wear. Han would take his turn last, the smell of the garbage chute not enough to get him to leave the cockpit, moving them _away-away-away_.

He didn’t know how long it was before Chewie all but lifted him from his seat, chiding about autopilot and getting washed. Han was quick in the sonic, conscious of the…passengers? guests? that he had been neglecting.

Luke was curled up on the bench, drowning in a set of Han’s spare clothes—head, neck, and shoulders wrapped in the poncho he’d been wearing when he’d first come aboard. He’d left it on the Millenium Falcon and, as such, it was the only article of his clothing that wasn’t in the wash cycle. He was quieter than Han expected, and more put together.

The princess had on another set of Han’s clothes—pant legs folded up into a bulky roll just below her knee, shirt worn in a some-how attractive manner with the use of a belt and clever gathering of fabric. Her hair was still in the pinned buns on either side of her head, slightly frizzed from the sonic. She was pacing across the small common area, like if she stopped she wouldn’t be able to start up again, muttering to herself.

Han awkwardly cleared his throat. “Anyone hungry?”

The pair of them turned to look at him, surprisingly in tandem, seemingly appalled by his suggestion.

“Alright, no need to get all up in arms,” he said, holding his hands up. “Thought I might as well check in on our resident _royal_.”

“Look here-” she started, angrily.

“Oh, I’m sorry, have I offended you by trying to be polite?”

“I just need you to get me to Yavin 4, and then you can go on your way with your reward, alright?”

“With not so much as a thank you?”

“You don’t deserve-”

“Stop it!” Luke broke it, pitch nearing the level of a distressed omega’s keen.

Han froze, ancient instincts tugging something anxious in his chest. The princess fell quiet, too, shifted closer to where Luke was sitting.

“Just….stop it.” Luke’s voice was softer, less distressed but no less concerning. “The Empire is looking for us, and we don’t have any transport passes. And-and I’m all alone, and I’m assuming you are too, Princess.”

“Leia,” the princess corrected. “You can call me Leia.”

“Leia,” Luke agreed. “Your planet was destroyed, and with it your family, yes?”

She flinched.

Luke looked apologetic, but continued, pulling the borrowed jacket that was much too big on him closer. “I don’t know what the laws are on your planet, but back on mine any omega without someone to claim them is free game.”

The princess sat on the opposite end of the bench that wrapped around the sabacc table, leaning forward and looking at him intently. “It’s not like that, with the Resistance. We’ll take anybody, and everybody technically has claim on omegas if it's needed.”

“Yeah, but we’re in open space,” Luke said. “The Empire doesn’t maintain any galactic law, out here.”

Leia looked like she’d had the floor open up on her. Han realized that, between everything else, she hadn’t quite remembered that fact. Any official claim that she might’ve had wouldn’t work out here, not on this ship and not with her company. 

The old man that Luke had been travelling with had likely been the person with claim on him, at least enough that would qualify for all but the dirtiest slavers. Both of them were up for grabs in these back pathways of space, used only by low lives like himself.

Han knew, intellectually, that the chances of a non-Empire ship stopping them was slim to none, and in the case of the Empire stopping them they were beyond fucked with or without someone to claim the omegas. Yet, something pushed him to say, “I’ll do it.”

“What?” the princess asked.

Luke’s eyes hardened, shoulders tensing. “You don’t have to.”

“Just until I get you both to Yavin 4,” Han immediately tried to pass off. “Nothing more. Consider it a precaution."

The princess was looking at Luke for his opinion. Smart, since he’d had more time around Han.

“Fine,” Luke said, still wary but less tense. Leia voiced her agreement, and warned that it was only until she was among the Resistance.

That wariness Han might’ve expected from someone so high ranking, but was odd from the seemingly naïve farmer kid. 

Then again, he’d grown up on Tatooine. And with a last name like Skywalker...well, Han imagined that no one with a slave’s name on Tatooine would be eagerly jumping at any chance to fall back under a master’s chain.

~~~

Han decided to come back, and he decided to stay.

He didn’t know what made him do it, but it felt right. Like this is where he was supposed to be. Chewie laughed at him when he’d voiced some approximation of that sentiment. Called him a soft hearted idiot. 

Han had brushed it off. Anyone with any decency would want to stop the cruelty that bred within their new Empire. He’d been around enough older folk that remembered the time before better than he could, and all of them agreed that it had been bad before but was only getting worse.

~~~

Luke smelled….strange.

Leia didn’t know what to make of it. She spent a good deal of time around him since the Resistance’s move to Hoth, but not nearly enough for him to start smelling like pack. Like family.

Maybe, in the absence of her own family, she had latched onto the next closest thing. But she had been spending more time around the high command than anyone else, and both she and Luke had been spending the same amount of their down time around Han and Chewie, and none of them smelled like Luke did to her.

It was only getting stronger, the more months that passed. Strong enough that Leia couldn’t help but ask him about it, one evening, as they sat aboard the Millennium Falcon. 

Luke liked it there, since it was easier to heat than the base carved from ice. Han was hammering away at something in the other room—the ship was old, which was good for avoiding certain tracking features, but bad in almost every other sense. Chewie was with him, yelling back and forth with him in accompaniment to the clanging.

Luke and her were pressed side-to-side. He had yet to adjust to the cold temperatures, and Leia was beginning to think he never would, but he wasn’t shivering for once. 

They shared a blanket between them. It was an oversized one that had probably come from Chewie’s bunk, given how it smelled of the Wookie. He had insistently wrapped them in it when they came aboard, ushering them to the bench and saying something along the lines of “warm up in here.”

Leia was more used to colder temperatures than Luke—she had done a lot of space travel in her years, and that was usually only slightly warmer than the heated ice caves, and spent a good deal of time in the Alderaanian mountains—but the chill still got to her after a long enough period of inactivity. Unfortunately, her post as high command meant she didn’t move around often. 

Poor Luke had spent his entire life in the blistering sands of Tatooine, and felt like he was freezing in any temperature that dipped below “balmy.” He’d taken to wedging himself under anyone’s arm that would allow it and was taller than he—which ended up being the majority of the base—and was commonly found shivering in several layers. He was able to function now, at least, even if the outside patrols still left him a bit of a mess.

“Luke?” she asked, laying her cheek on his hair. She resisted the urge to scent mark him. Not only would that be unasked for, it would be inappropriate.

“Yeah?”

“Your-” Unless one was pack or extremely close, conversations about scent would always be uncomfortable. “You smell...different to me than most people do.”

Luke lifted his head from her shoulder. “What do you mean?”

“You smell like family,” she admitted.

“Oh. You’ve noticed it too?”

It was Leia’s turn to twist to face him better. “I thought I was going crazy! Wait, it’s not-it’s only you, that I’ve noticed. It’s not like I’m developing pack bonds with anyone else.”

Luke nodded, the beginnings of a smile crooking his mouth. “It’s only you. You also….resonate in the Force, unlike anyone else I have yet to meet. There’s a sense of rightness, when I’m around you.”

Leia didn’t know how to respond to that. The Force was strange, foreign. She elected to avoid that particular point of conversation and instead ask, “Why is this happening?”

Luke looked away from her, suddenly quite awkward. “I have an idea. I don’t mean to assume, but were you adopted?”

She blinked. “Yes. Why-”

“I was raised by my aunt and uncle, on Tatooine,” he rushed to explain. “My grandmother had a son before she married my uncle’s father. That was my father—he was taken away from Tatooine by the Jedi when he was a child, and trained by Ben.”

Leia nodded that she was following his line of conversation, though confused at the point of it.

“I was told only a little about him, when I was younger. My aunt and uncle had only met him once or twice, and all other information came from my grandmother from what she told them of his childhood. They never told me of my mother, only that she was beautiful and kind the once they met her.”

“What does this have to do with me being adopted?”

“What do you know about your birth parents?”

Leia frowned. She had never cared all that much about her birth parents. Her parents were the people that raised her—raised her to be Queen of their planet, or Senator if she so desired, leaving the queenly duties to her cousins—she had little use for the people that had sparked her existence. 

Leia, however, _was_ aware _((and quite proud))_ of the fact that her birthmother had once been a powerful queen of her home planet of Naboo, and a Senator after her elected term ended. The woman had been molded in death into a figurehead for the Empire, but Leia’s parents had told her the truth. Told Leia of her passion for democracy, of her bravery and perseverance in attempting to maintain it. She had been a good friend to them, and had died tragically before her time.

“She was an elected queen, and a senator later,” Leia told Luke. “She was Nabooian. Beloved enough, and close enough to the Emperor, that they warped her image into a martyr along with several of the people that worked closely with her, but she would never have supported the Emperor.”

“What was her name?”

“Padmé Amidala.”

Luke laughed, sounding choked up. Leia scrutinized his face and found there to be tears welling in his eyes. “My mother’s name was Padmé.”

“Oh,” Leia said faintly. Could-this was impossible, but could it possibly…?

“The Senate used to work closely with the Jedi, didn’t they?”

Leia nodded. They had. Her father had told her a great deal about his close friend, Obi-Wan Kenobi, who of course had been a Jedi. He never mentioned names, but he told her a great many stories about the buried feats of the Jedi that he trusted to be true. Of how he’d met several due to his position as a politician, given that Jedi were renowned for their skills of negotiation and often mediated treaty deals.

Was it really that far fetched that her otherwise unmarried and unattached birth mother could have been with a Jedi? Would it be insane to consider that she had a long-lost brother that, in the chaos of the Empire rising, had to be separated from her?

“We have similar birthdays,” Luke said, voice still rough.

“Only a day apart,” Leia agreed.

“And who knows if that is the truth.”

They looked at each other.

Leia saw something in his face that she hadn’t before. The way his jaw curved, how his nose was shaped, the angle of his eyes, all mirrored back at her. He was tan to her fair complexion, blonde to her brunette, eyes a brilliant blue _((the color of the desert sky))_ to her dark brown _((the color of fresh-brewed caff))_ , but their similarities lay just beneath the differences.

“Oh,” she said. Whatever emotion that had choked Luke was getting to her, now, something thick rising in her throat and welling up in her eyes.

Luke laughed, and she gave into that earlier instinct of scent marking him, rubbing their cheeks together. She couldn’t help but laugh, too, at the ridiculousness. She had a brother. A long-lost _twin brother_.

~~~

Luke and Leia weren’t at breakfast.

It wasn’t all that unusual for one or the other to have been busy during the meal—what, with Leia’s importance and Luke’s tendency to try and help everyone on base—but it was unusual for Han not to know where at least one of them was. One of the omegas would either have made a passing mention to their expected absence, or the one who would be there would know of the other’s location.

Han had no reason to worry, not really, but something tugged at him to go check around base for the twins nonetheless. Maybe it was some misplaced alpha protectiveness reminding him that he’d technically put his claim on both of them, even if it wasn’t needed here, or hadn’t ever been put in use.

He wanted to scoff off the need to find them. He didn’t want to admit that he cared, much less admit how deep that care ran, not even to himself. Besides, Luke was a commander and Leia was a general. They could take care of themselves. They were on a friendly-only base, for Star’s sake.

Still, Han couldn’t push off that urge even as he began to head towards the shipyard to finish fixing up the Falcon so he and Chewie could finally be on their way after nearly three years of aiding the Resistance. He had debts to pay and a life to lead. Settling in one place for so long made him….itchy. 

He ended up hanging a left, to at least check their rooms, when the anxiety proved too great, cursing under his breath.

“Princess?” Her room was empty. Strangely enough, all the bedding was missing from her cot—an odd sight when her bed was often so cleanly made. Not that Han was in her room often. At least, not anymore often than a good friend ought to be. _((Yes, that was it, he was just being friendly.))_

Luke’s room, too, was empty with all of his bedding missing. It also smelled faintly sweet, sensual. The edge of an omega beginning heat.

Or maybe two.

Han had to find them now. It didn’t matter that they weren’t actually his, or that the chance of something happening on this base was low, or that every other heat that they’d had was uneventful, he couldn’t help himself. He had to find where they were and-and what? Check on them? Guard them? Screw them into next week?

He’d figure it out when he found them. Those omegas were his. Responsibility. His responsibility. He’d promised to look out for them. That was all.

Not that he’d noticed how Luke would flutter his lashes, or how Leia would lose a good deal of the tension in her body when she began to bicker with Han, or how Luke would always end up leaning against Han’s side during meals, or how Leia would ask Han to help her unbraid her hair _((a highly trusted position in Alderaanian culture, even Han knew that))_ , or how Luke would take breaks sitting by Han as he worked and chatted about nothing important, or how Leia would drop her composure only around Han and Luke and Chewie.

Chewie called for him when he entered the hangar bay that took up most of the base.

“What is it, why aren’t you working on the ship?”

Chewie scoffed at that, rumbling a fondly exasperated complaint about nesting omegas.

“They’re both on the ship, then?”

Chewie waved him in, saying that he would leave work on the ship for another day, departing with one last warning to not do anything stupid.

“I would never!” Han shouted after him. He had a feeling that Chewie was rolling his eyes at him.

The inside of the ship was heavy with the scent of heat _((the scent of Luke, the scent of Leia))_. It was cloying, nearly, but he couldn’t turn on the usual filtration because it was meant for space travel and would send everything non-essential to the hangar bay.

“Luke? Leia? Where are you?” 

“Han?” Leia called.

He followed her voice to his room. She was wrapped in what looked to be one of Han’s blankets, another of what might’ve been Chewie’s _((it was hard to focus on anything other than her overwhelming scent))_ , and what seemed to be a mix of her and Luke’s bedding. 

“Hey, there, sweetheart.”

“C’mere?” she asked. Her hair was in a simple plait. Han couldn’t tell under all the blankets, but he was pretty sure she wasn’t wearing anything underneath.

“I don’t know if that would be such a great idea,” he said.

She glared at him, pouting. “I’m still capable of decision making, Han. I know you want to, have for a while. I’ve wanted to for almost as long.”

Omegas in heat were more no less capable of decision making, but critical thinking was definitely not a strong suit. Leia seemed to be clear headed enough, but….Han had to leave. He couldn’t—he _wouldn’t_ —give in just before running off. It would be better for all of them this way.

“Where’s your brother?”

“Under the floor.”

“In one of the smuggling compartments?”

She hummed her confirmation. He turned to go looking for Luke.

“He’d be okay with it, you know.”

Han refused to look at her. “Oh?”

“We’ve been talking about it.”

Han’s knuckles turned white from how hard he was holding the door frame. He didn’t want to hear this, didn’t want to have this possibility hang before him. He knew it had been a mistake to stay here, knew that he shouldn’t have let himself get so close to anyone. It had been him and Chewie since the start. No one else had ever worked out, no one else _would_.

“If you still need to leave after all this,” Leia said, softly. “I understand. I know Luke does, too. Maybe even better than me.”

Han left her in his bed, headed for the cockpit. He stopped before he could reach it. Anyone could see into the cockpit from the outside, and he would like to have a bit of privacy as he contemplated what Leia just told him.

He was...he was _wanted._

He wanted to believe it, but it seemed so far fetched. Even with everything else, those twins—why would they want to have _anything_ to do with him? They were so young, so much better than he was. They each deserved someone who would devote themselves wholly to them. Leia should have someone who understood what she did, who was able to support her and have her back. Luke should have someone who could match his enthusiasm for the galaxy, someone to meet his sunny grin with one of their own.

Han couldn’t be those people for either of them. Much less both of them. He shouldn’t be here, hounding after them, he should just make sure they had some food and water and leave them alone. Or, he could just make sure someone else did it. They didn’t deserve him. _He_ didn’t deserve them.

“Han?”

~~~

Luke heard Han get on the Millennium Falcon, calling out for him and Leia. He almost answered back, but she got to it first.

He snuggled down into the nest he’d made in the hidden compartment. It was safe, homey in a way that none of his heats had been since he’d left Tatooine. He missed the burrow dug in the storage room of his aunt and uncle’s house. His grandmother had been the one to make it, years ago, as was common on Tatooine. It was too hot during the days to safely be in heat in just the normal bedrooms, too cold at night to not be curled up somewhere warm. A burrow in the floor was perfect for both counts.

It was a good deal longer than he figured it should take for Han to come check on him _((knowing him he would check on them both before deciding to do anything—something Luke was sure Leia was going to be bringing up after all they’d discussed it))_ when he thought to poke his head up.

Han was sitting on the floor, not too far from the compartment Luke decided to bed down in. He hadn’t even looked up when Luke lifted up the panel.

“Han?”

He startled, relaxing only a tiny bit when he saw Luke. “Hey there, sweetheart, how you feeling?”

“Fine,” Luke said. “It’s warm down here.”

Han laughed. It sounded a bit strangled. “I’d bet.”

“Leia talked to you, didn’t she?”

He laughed again, that same terrible undertone to it.

“She wasn’t lying,” Luke said. “And she wasn’t speaking for me. We’d been meaning to bring it up earlier, things just...kept getting in the way.”

“I figured as much.”

Luke shifted where he stood. He wanted to be curled up, wanted Han to be next to him, but he didn’t think that would be happening all that quickly.

“I know you and Chewie are leaving,” Luke said carefully. “I’m not trying to stop that. You can go if you have to, and you can stay gone if you need to. Just….know that I’d rather you wouldn’t. Not if you don’t have to."

“Luke-” Han’s voice cracked.

“Come here?” Luke asked, letting his eyes go wide and pleading.

Han acquiesced, sitting on the side of the hatch, feet dangling. Luke laid his cheek on Han’s thigh, rubbing the itching scent gland against his pant leg.

“Will you please stay? For me? For Leia?”

Han’s throat bobbed, fingers twitched. It took a long time for him to blink away whatever emotions were pushing themselves forward. An even longer time for him to say anything.

“Okay, Luke. I’ll stay.”

~~~

Leia scraped her cheek up against Han’s. They were still rosy from the cold of the outside, where he’d been scouting. 

They weren’t quite mates, not yet, but they were quickly becoming it. Ever since Leia's and Luke’s last heats—synced up, finally, after years of living closely as they did—and Han decided to stay, it did feel like only a matter of time. They...fit together. It came naturally. Things might only be expedited by what she had to tell him. That, or he might freak out. Either way, she had to tell him.

“Come with me?” she asked, pulling him along to her room.

He went, but he looked a bit absent-minded. She settled him on the bed, standing because she didn’t think she could handle sitting right now.

“I have something to tell you.”

“What is it?”

“I’m pregnant.”

He made a strangled noise, eyes popping open. He stared at her stomach, then up at her face like she was lying. “You’re-”

She nodded, tentatively reaching out for his hand. He gave it to her, and she cradled it between hers. “I got the test done this morning.”

He blinked several times, mouth clicking shut. “Oh. That’s the smell.”

“What?”

“I noticed you’re scent shifted. Luke’s shifted too. He’s-”

It was Leia’s turn to be shocked. Of course it would be her brother and her that would somehow both get pregnant within the same few days. With the same man. That part, at least, was well discussed. Kriff.

“He didn’t come back with me.”

“Luke?”

Han was up on his feet, heading for the door. “He was out scouting with me, and he didn’t come back with me. He might still be out there!”

Leia rushed after him, forgetting her worry on how Han would react to the news. The rest of the conversation could wait, they had to find Luke first. Luke who they couldn’t reach because all the ships were out of repair, Luke was out in the cold with a rapidly approaching storm, Luke who was used to sand and heat and had little idea how to survive out there. Not to mention _why_ he hadn’t come back.

Han took a tauntaun, cursing at the beta that’d tried to stop him, leaving Leia worried into knots.

~~~

Han was numb when morning finally came with a ship to take Luke and him back to base.

He was cold—not nearly as bad as Luke, not even close—and reeking of the entrails that Luke was covered in, and tired from a sleepless night. He had yet to process Leia’s admission of pregnancy, beyond the base knowledge. Refused to process what it might mean for Luke, after the ordeal he’d been through.

Han knew, obviously, that there were many things to think about in that department, but lacked the energy.

Chewie had him—freshly washed and checked over by a medic—all but in his lap, warming a deep chill. Leia paced before the bacta tank that held Luke.

“Are you sure he’ll be okay?” Leia asked the medic, once again.

“He should make a full recovery,” xe assured, not for the first time.

“And the-the baby?”

“Only time will tell, but there is still a strong heartbeat. Rest, your worry does no good for your own unborn child.”

Leia sat heavily beside Han, with a huff. The medic just shook xir head and left the bacta chamber in lieu of the main ward.

Han automatically extended an arm around her, used to Luke’s tendency to like to huddle close, forgetting for a moment it was a rare time that Leia would deign to be so “undignified.” She surprised him by tucking herself under his arm, also under Chewie’s just by the positioning. An absent hand came to rest over her belly.

“Han?”

“Yeah, sweetheart?”

“War is hardly something to bring kids into.”

For a moment his numb heart crackled, releasing sad-resign-bitter into the air. Leia pressed herself closer.

“But…but I can’t bear to...to even think of losing them. Luke made me realize, and—well, it might not the wisest decision with my position, but-”

With relief, Han sighed and leaned back against Chewie’s side. “Shh, Leia, we can figure it all out later. It’ll be okay.”

She quieted. Chewie made a low noise—in shyriiwook, a message of peace. Luke floated in the bacta and two heartbeats thudded steadily on the monitors. Han let himself sleep.

~~~

Lando went out to greet the man who stole their ship.

Han looked good—scruffy, a bit dirty, but fed and dressed alright. He’d had a decent shave recently and his hair was a maintained length.

“Hey!” Han called, walking forward with a heart melting grin, as though it hadn’t been years but rather only a few weeks, and they hadn’t parted with such an argument.

“Why, you slimy, double-crossing, no-good smuggler. You got a lot of guts coming here, after what you pulled.”

Han looked stricken, as if he hadn’t warranted the response. 

Lando hugged him. He smelled just the same as always, but a little cleaner, and a little warmer. Had he mated someone?

“How you doing, you old pirate?” they laughed, relishing in the fear and hesitance. “How you doing, where’ve you been?”

Han relaxed a bit, laughing with them.

“Whatcha doing here?”

“Ah, repairs. I thought you could help us out.”

Lando noted the use of ‘we’. Even when referring to something mutually beneficial for him and Chewie, Han rarely used ‘we’.

“What’d you do to my ship?”

“Your ship? Hey, you lost her to me fair and square!” Defensive, even more than usual when hinting at that old sore spot.

“And how have you been, Chewbacca? Still hanging around with this loser?”

Chewie made a noise that Lando knew translated towards something like “yes, unfortunately,” though a touch more on the fond side.

Then Lando noticed the woman.

“What have we here?”

She was small—coming up to just about Han’s shoulder, Chewie’s elbow. She wore a cream outfit of something official seeming, and had her hair coiled in a crown around her head—too simple to be Nabooian. Alderaanian, perhaps? She was an omega, by their initial inhale, but something else underlay that. She was pregnant.

“Welcome, I’m Lando Calarisian, administrator of this facility. And who might you be?”

“Leia,” she answered, distrustful and a touch wary. They kissed her hand and—yes, she was definitely expecting.

Han interrupted, pushing Lando away from this ‘Leia’. He wasn’t quite posturing, but it was damn more territorial than he’d ever been about a person, at least when Lando knew him. The edge of a warning growl was met with a placating near-purr-hum from Leia.

“Why Han, I didn’t figure you the settling down type!”

“Who said anything about settling?” he attempted to play off, laughter weak.

“The wife and the kid on the way usually indicate otherwise.”

“He’s not my-” Leia began.

“It’s not-” Han also started.

“Maybe somewhat-” Leia amended.

“Don’t mean I’m settled-” Han attempted.

“I mean, the galaxy-”

“Of course, there’s Luke-”

“It’s complicated?” Lando guessed, cutting off the verbal stumbling. Chewie responded with a grumble along the lines of “you don’t know the half of it.”

Leia glared at Han, who rubbed the back of his neck sheepishly. “Yeah, you could say that.”

“Alright, alright, I won’t pry. What seems to be the issue with the old girl?”

Han walked Lando through the (frankly alarming) list of problems, and a bit of how they came to be on Bespin. It was honestly a miracle they’d managed to fly at all with the damage to the poor ship, even if it had taken nearly two months to limp their way through space.

“Repairs like these…”

“Few months?” Han guessed.

“At least. Bespin is rather remote, obviously. We get quite a bit of business, but supply ships are few and far between.”

Han nodded. “Alright...any complaint, your highness?” He directed the end towards his unexpected companion, who glared in response.

She still seemed uncomfortable with Lando’s presence, and she also looked irritated at the projected time frame. She didn’t say anything, though.

“Let me show you some rooms,” Lando offered. “I’ll give you an empirical suite for your extended stay.”

~~~

“Attachments, you have,” Yoda said.

Luke had told Yoda straight out of his condition, knowing that it was hard to detect by non-humans. The old Jedi master had cackled some nonsense, as turned out to be usual. He’d said something about him being like his father, unprecedented and impossible to deny. Now, his baby bump was prominent enough to rest in his lap when he sat and made balancing difficult.

“Attachments?” Luke huffed into his disgusting tea. The old troll had insisted he drink it, claiming it was healthy for him. Like most of the food here it didn’t taste great, but he’d eaten worse. What he wouldn’t kill for some of his aunt's _tzai_ , or his grandmother’s—his father’s, his family's—specific blend of _tzai_ that Aunt Beru had known and passed down to him, or some of Tatooine’s spicy food he had come to dearly miss.

“Have no attachments, a good Jedi should.”

“What about friends and family?”

“There is no emotion, there is peace. There is no ignorance, there is knowledge. There is no passion, there is serenity. There is no chaos, there is harmony. There is no death, there is the Force.”

“That isn’t true.”

“True, you say it is not?”

“There _is_ emotion, there _is_ ignorance, and passion and chaos and death. You can’t just deny them,” Luke argued. “Maybe you can strive for those other things, but you can’t just-just-”

Yoda interrupted what he was trying to articulate _((what that was, Luke wasn’t sure himself))_. “Much like your father, are you, young one.”

“Is that a good thing?”

Yoda placed one clawed hand on the curve of Luke’s stomach. “Unprecedented, it is. Unprecedented, all this is. Perhaps better, perhaps worse.”

~~~

As the days passed Leia’s condition became obvious to all species, rather than just those with high scenting abilities. She spent most of her time with Han and Chewie in the mechanical bay, helping with the repairs even though it was clear she didn’t have much skill for it.

Han seemed to be getting more anxious as the days wore on. Lando was kept busy with their usual work, but they tried to visit and the unease was obvious. Something was eating at Han, though Lando didn’t know what.

They figured it out, partially, after overhearing a conversation they doubted the pair meant for them to listen in on.

“I’m not being irrational, Luke is out who-knows-where! And if you’re getting bigger, and things are getting harder for you to do _and_ you have Chewie and Threepio and me to help you out, and Luke’s all alone aside from Artoo-” Han was saying, voice low.

“He’s my brother, and he’s fine,” Leia shot back, sighing as though this was a regular conversation.

“But-”

“I can sense it! He’s alright, and so is his baby.”

“Great, so we’ll know that he’s hurt and dying as soon as it happens! Not exactly reassuring, sweetheart.”

“Leave it, Han!”

Lando pieced together that Leia had a brother that was also pregnant and similarly far along. They also realized that Han cared deeply for him. Was this the “complicated” that they had meant? Or was there something else. Lando had realized quickly that the group were probably Resistance, but there was more to it. Han called Leia “princess” and “your highness” one to many times for it to be some sort of joke. Could she really have such status?

Either way, Cloud City welcomed all, and they were outside of the Empire’s direct control. Han might’ve screwed them over in the past, but Lando was willing to shelter him for as long as it would take for him to get his ship fixed. Despite all the double crossing, they were friends.

~~~

Luke’s water had broken somewhere on his flight from Dagobah.

He’d lost track of time, in the pain. But he had to get to Bespin. The Force was practically screaming with it. Leia needed him, Vader was going to show up, and something would happen to Han. He knew that. It didn’t matter that his baby was coming. In fact, that only made the urgency rise.

Yoda, for all he urged Luke to face Vader, had tried to stop him from going. All but forced him to stay. Artoo with his limited understanding of humans protested their leaving. But Luke needed to do this. He had to go _now_.

When he got to Cloud City he was directed to a remote landing bay. He stumbled from his ship, leaning on Artoo’s domed head for support as soon as the astromech whirled over.

He was greeted by a dark skinned human, a beta from the scent. They must’ve figured out what was happening pretty quickly, eyes going wide. “Are you Luke?”

Luke nodded, forcing himself to stay on his feet. “Where’s Han and Leia?”

“You have to leave _now_.”

“I can’t go, I-” He gasped, nearly brought to his knees from the pain. Artoo beeped worriedly.

“You have to-”

“Vader is here, isn’t he?” Luke asked through gritted teeth.

The beta nodded miserably. “He-it was Han or the entire city, but I had no idea you’d be showing up, or that he was interested in Leia, too-”

“Just get me to them,” Luke asked. “I need to get to them.”

~~~

Han realized he’d fucked up somewhere between Luke showing up in labor, all while Leia’s contractions were in full steam, and finding out Lando turned them over to Darth Vader.

Well, Han could be fair. It seemed his old acquaintance had at least felt some level of horror and remorse when they realized that two of the four sentients they were handing over were incredibly far along in pregnancy, and they had been operating in a way to save the citizens of this settlement. They’d warned them, but it had been too late to make an escape.

Chewie and the droids had separated from Han and the twins in an attempt to distract the troops. No one seemed to know where exactly the three were, but they were still sweeping the base in waves looking for them.

“Shh,” Han tried to soothe. Both of the red faced, panting omegas glared, but didn’t say anything as the patrol of bucket heads passed. Why had he agreed to this all nine months ago when their heats synced? He could only blame it on hormones and stupidity.

Luke choked on a pained cry, kneeling and rocking on the floor of the supply closet they were hidden in. He cradled his tightened and spasming baby bump as if he were already holding the pup within. Han thought he might have been crying. It was hard to tell with the sweat beading on his face.

“Okay,” Han whispered. “We can maybe make a run to the shipyard after the next sweep-”

Leia snorted, one hand rubbing tight circles on her own rounded belly, the other holding tight to Luke’s shoulder. She was still standing, though she wouldn’t likely be managing that for much longer. “I don’t know if _I’d_ be able to make it, much less Luke.”

“We have to try,” Han shot back.

“The pups are coming now, whether we like it or not!”

Luke let out a sharp gasp, rising up on his haunches. “Gotta-gonna have to push. I’ve gotta-”

Han froze for all of three seconds before rushing to get him out of his pants. Leia helped stabilize Luke as Han tugged off the garment despite her own expression that twisted in pain. Luke ended up in a crouch, hanging tight to Han’s shoulders as he knelt in front of him. Leia stood behind her brother, trying to offer comfort while leaning back against the wall for her own support.

“Okay, Luke, whenever you’re ready.”

Han never thought he’d be grateful for his brief stint being the cargo under a group of slavers, but that little misadventure had placed him in a cell with a very pregnant twi’lek and an eldely Mandalorian. The twi’lek had ended up going into labor, the Mandalorian ordering Han to assist from where she’d been chained to the wall until the baby was in their mother’s arms. It gave him just enough experience to not be panicking as he was preparing to deliver his own children while being hunted down by stormtroopers. But only just.

Luke wasn’t staying as quiet as remaining hidden would require, but Han figured they were screwed either way. Who was he to insist that the omega literally pushing a human out of him stay silent.

“I can feel the top of their head,” Han encouraged, pushing aside the wonder of touching his baby. “C’mon, sweetheart, keep going.”

“Is the umbilical cord around his neck?” Leia asked urgently. She was swiveling her hips, trying to relieve the pressure, hissing in pain with increasing frequency.

“Head’s not out yet to tell. Breathe, Luke.”

“Not too fast, you’ll tear,” Leia coached. “Ten seconds push...push...push…rest.”

“Head’s out.” Han quickly felt around the pup’s neck, feeling to make sure the chord wasn’t suffocating. “All good on the chord, keep pushing when you’re ready.”

Leia suddenly tensed.

Han looked up at her, meeting her eyes.

“My water just broke.”

He didn’t get a chance to react before Luke was crying out, tightening his grip around Han’s shoulder.

“Almost there, sweetheart, c’mon.”

Luke panted, forehead pressed into Han’s chest. 

“One more for me, give me one more big push Luke. Just one last one for the shoulders and you’ll be in the clear.”

Luke all but screamed and Han was cradling the little pup in his hands. They wailed, high and warbling.

“An inbetween, Luke.” They’d already discussed using female pronouns for any inbetweens, way back when they were still on Hoth, until they grew up enough to say otherwise. “A little girl.”

The baby was so, so small. Han marveled at her scrunched up face and her perfect toes and fingers. He put her in Luke’s arms, wiping the gunk off her face with the soft lining of Luke’s discarded jacket.

Luke all but collapsed to his knees, slumping forward against Han.

Han managed to get him to sit against the wall, the baby nestled partially under his undone tunic, held close to his chest. Just as he was situated Leia began to struggle out of her pants.

“You two are going to be the death of me,” Han muttered to himself, jumping to the aid of his other omega.

Luke’s baby girl had stopped wailing, snuggled up to Luke’s undoubtedly familiar heartbeat. Luke was thankfully slowly regaining a somewhat normal pallor rather than the stressed red, thought a touch paler than he should be. The pool of blood and various other fluid only seemed to be growing on the floor, but Han thought that was probably standard.

Leia keened, loud and high, enough to make Han’s heart skip a beat. That sound from an omega was meant specifically to draw alpha attention to their aid.

Bootsteps came from down the hall.

“Hey, who’s in there!”

Han was a touch too focused on making sure Leia was alright to come up with a witty response.

“Kind of busy in here, come back later!” he shouted. He was bracing Leia up from behind her, trying to keep calm despite all the “we’re screwed, we’re screwed, we’re screwed” running through his head. If Leia panicked it could mean a world of problems.

“Break down the door,” one of the troopers ordered, just as the baby wailed and Leia screamed.

Silence from the troopers, for an objectively hilariously long moment.

“Get a droid to get this door open,” they finally settled on. “And alert the commander.”

Leia was focusing on delivering her baby, which Han figured was likely for the best. She was pacing herself much better than Luke had, following breathing patterns that Han vaguely remembered from holodramas. She did seem to be less of a “natural,” if Han would venture to use the word. Where Luke had been focused—nearly overcoming the pain simply by sheer force of will—Leia was relying on technical methods. Han left her to it while he tried to strategize.

He had no blaster. Luke had his lightsaber, but Han was likely to cut himself or someone else in the tiny space if he tried using it. He would fight down to his teeth if he had to, that went without saying, but the reality was that he’d hardly make a scratch against the stormtrooper’s armor.

Luke stirred with a sharp, pained inhale.

“Han!” Leia cried.

“Focus on you, princess. You’re okay, pup’s okay, just focus on this. Push when you need to, do what you have to.”

She rocked back, leaving Han to hold her up more. He hooked one hand under her thigh, the other still beneath her to keep a grasp of what was happening.

“They have the droid,” Luke murmured, eyes foggy. He was bleeding still, and Han didn’t know if he should be worrying about that or not. The pup was starting to cry in earnest again, and it broke Han’s heart to hear such a distressed cry from such a tiny being.

“I can feel their head, Leia.”

The droid could be heard whirling away at the panel by the door. They’d messed it up pretty bad when they locked themselves in, but it would only be minutes before the stormtroopers got the door open.

“Leia, just keep pushing. No matter what, just keep on pushing.”

He got a guttural moan in response. More of the baby’s head slid out.

“Han, take the baby,” Luke said.

“Little occupied here, sweetheart.”

“Take her,” Luke insisted. Han had one hand on Leia’s baby when he’d really rather have both, and another to hold her up.

“Give her here,” Leia panted.

“Is that really the best-” Han began, but Luke was already handing his pup over and Leia was carefully balancing her on her thigh, bracketed between Han’s arm and her own hand that she had braced there. It wasn’t the best solution, but it was the only one at the moment. Han tucked his elbow and shoulder awkwardly to try and secure her better.

Luke was staggering to his feet, lightsaber in hand. His tunic fell in such a way that it just covered his modesty, blood smeared all the way down his bare thighs.

Leia screamed, Luke’s pup wailed, and the door slid open.

Luke was ready with his lightsaber, though he couldn’t do much more than hold it in front of him to ward off anyone from coming in. It seemed as if the troopers were too shocked at the situation to do much anyways.

Han didn't spare the brain power to bite back the snarl rising in his throat. Leia’s pup was sliding out into his waiting hand. He scooped them up onto Leia’s chest, along with their elder…half sibling? Cousin?

“They’re not crying-their lungs-” Leia gasped out between great gulps of air. “Han, they’re not-”

He took the baby from her—a girl, another little girl—rubbing at her chest. She was hardly moving, but she couldn’t-she was going to-

She started to cry and Han nearly shook from the relief of it. Leia was crying, he was pretty sure, but he couldn’t tell over the two pups’ squalling and the commotion at the door. 

_The commotion at the door_.

Darth Vader was standing amongst the stormtroopers. His red lightsaber wasn't out, but Han knew not to trust that as indicative of his ability to cause harm. Luke was swaying on his feet, a hiss emanating low in his throat.

“Stay away from them!”

“Luke,” Han said, arms full of Leia and the pups, back against the wall. He was going to say something—something about peacefully surrendering, or not being able to get out of this one their usual way—but Leia startled.

“He’s hemorrhaging,” she whispered, as though she didn’t want to believe it.

Luke, half turned to look at them, deathly pale. His lightsaber shut off as his eyes, unfocused, met Han’s. “I think I’m going to faint.”

Which he, of course, did. Right into the arms of Darth Vader.

~~~

They ended up in what could only be a private medical ward. Leia inspired a fast pace in the stunned silence Luke’s fainting had received, screaming about how he would be dead in minutes if they didn’t do something.

Han half expected Vader to drop Luke, leaving him to bleed out on the floor, and order Han and Leia dragged off to a cell somewhere. He didn’t know what would happen with the pups because he wasn’t given the chance to think of it, as Vader moved quickly. He swept Luke’s legs up into his grasp and ordered the troopers to follow him.

One of the bucketheads ended up carrying Leia when it was clear she wouldn’t be doing anything even close to standing. Han would rather be holding her—and Luke, though that’d be impossible—but letting any trooper so much as touch the pups were infinitely worse.

Several medi-droids and a doctor quickly went to work on Luke when they arrived. Leia was placed on a bed next to her brother’s, a single medi-droid working to check on her. After a quick scan the babies were marked as alright enough to wait for a full, proper work up until after their mothers were stabilized. Han held them, sitting between his omegas’ beds, keeping a distrustful gaze on Vader who remained against the wall.

It was hours before Luke was declared alright. The pups were checked and cleaned and fed by Leia, asleep in the bassinets that Han placed at his back, bracketed by their mothers’ beds and the wall.

The doctor was dismissed. The stormtroopers had been ordered to guard the door. Leia was out cold and Luke was likely to sleep until tomorrow. Vader stood in the far corner of the room, at parade rest.

“Why’d you save them?” Han asked, lowly, unable to stand the stifling silence any longer.

Vader turned his head slightly, and Han realized from the positioning that he’d likely been staring at Luke.

Vader didn’t speak, but his gaze felt heavy.

“I thought you were supposed to kill him. The Jedi that threatened you, and all that.”

“I wanted him to join me.”

Han scoffed. “Join you? I thought you were supposed to be the Jedi killer.”

Vader sounded nearly like he hesitated as he said, “He’s my son.”

And Han was not prepared for that.

“Excuse me, what? He’s your _son?”_

Han ran his hands through his hair. Of course. Of course! These were the two that realized they were long-lost twins a few months after they first met, the two that somehow decided that they both wanted him, the two that managed to not only get knocked up at the same time but also give birth only scant minutes apart. He should never have turned back, after he first dropped them off on Yavin 4. That’s when this all started. He could’ve had all his problems solved with that reward money, instead his life had turned into a holodrama with life-or-death stakes.

Vader was still watching him.

“Figures these two would have you as a father,” Han said, tight with incredulity. “Their lives aren’t dramatic enough as it is. Need something more to give them a real kick in the teeth.”

“These two?” Vader asked.

“You didn’t know?” Han laughed, beyond caring at this point. “They’re twins. Leia was taken in by the Alderaanian Queen and Senator, Luke was taken to his uncle’s farm on Tatooine.”

Vader abruptly left the room.

~~~

Lando was finally allowed into the medical bay hours after they’d overheard a set of maybe four stormtroopers discussing the strangeness they had just witnessed. That, of course, having been Luke, Leia, and Han, and the two babies that were apparently healthy and locked in the medbay with their parents.

Not that they weren’t grateful for the ability to regroup with someone who wasn’t incessantly chatting (Threepio), utterly no help (Artoo), or moping and worrying more than offering actual advice (Chewbacca), but Lando was surprised by the way that things were operating.

For one, there only seemed to be a very limited number of stormtroopers still left within the capitol building compared to the quite large amount that had first been here. Secondly, they had figured that their choice to warn the civilians alongside the people they were supposed to be handing over would get them killed, not locked up. Third, something should have happened by now. With that state Han, Luke, and Leia had been in, there would be little point in trying to get information, Vader and his troopers should have turned to Lando and Chewie and the droids by now.

And what was with letting prisons speak to each other? Lando might not _technically_ be a prisoner, as of yet, but it was quite literally only a matter of time.

The two troopers escorting them relieved the two stationed at the door to the med wing, ushering Lando in. There was no other way in or out, being so deep in the center of the building, that they didn’t have to worry about Lando trying to stage a breakout.

Han was awkwardly sprawled in one of the small visiting chairs, located firmly in front of what must have been the two cradles for the babies, between Luke and Leia’s beds. Both omegas were dead asleep, looking worse for the wear but alive. Han started to his feet, swaying a bit.

“Lando.”

“Han,” Lando returned, wary. They didn’t want to start anything, not after everything that they had just done to warrant Han’s mistrust.

Han didn’t seem intent on keeping to anger, though. He clasped Lando’s forearm with his. “You have no idea what craziness has just been happening.”

“I heard something about a closet?” they said lightly, unsure of what it was Han might need in this situation. They reciprocated the gesture of comfort, though, letting Han hold onto them.

“You mean the maternity ward, of course. Only the finest for my two omegas,” Han said, composure fracturing more by the moment. One of the babies started to cry, and Han rushed over to pick them up. He cradled them carefully close, brushing the inside of his wrist against the curve of the baby’s head.

“Who’s this little one?” Lando asked.

“No names yet, kinda lost track in all the chaos, but this is Leia’s girl. She wasn’t breathing right away, but we got her all fixed up.”

Lando winced. “I am sorry about all this.”

Han waved them off, still focused on the pup in his arms. “I know, I know, it was a situation and you handled it the best you could.”

Lando hesitated. “Do you know what they want with us, or what their plans are?”

“Kark if I know,” Han sighed. Something closer to discontent was rolling off him, carefully kept from his scent to avoid disturbing the pups. Lando could still tell. “Thought they were gonna kill us. Turns out—and you might want to sit down for this one, because it’s kriffing terrible—Vader is the twin’s _father_.”

“How in the hells is that possible?” they demanded. They hadn’t quite known that Luke and Leia were twins, but they knew they were siblings at least. But of all things, _Vader was their father?_

“Beats me,” Han said. “Hand me that formula?”

Lando acquiesced, standing awkwardly as Han settled back in the chair to feed his daughter.

“So….” they finally began. “You have no idea what he’s got planned?”

“None.”

“He hasn’t said, or done anything to you yet? No indication of _anything?"_

“Nothing.”

Lando threw up their hands. “And I’m supposed to tell Chewbacca what, exactly? He’s worrying like an old mother tooka.”

“Tell him what I told you, and tell him that the twins and the pups are safe.”

Lando grumbled all the way back to the makeshift cell. Han gave them next to no news, and it wasn’t like Chewie to take that without protest. He’d adopted Han as one of his tribe years ago, and Lando knew first hand how deep that loyalty lied. It didn’t help that they had no useful information about how to actually get _out_ of this predicament, either.

~~~

“Vader is my _what!”_ Leia demanded in a hissing whisper, Luke’s pup held in her arms while her own lay sleeping in her cradle.

Han tried desperately to keep his scent and voice calm, though he didn’t have the greatest control over either at the best of times. “He told me that he was Luke’s father. I said something that indicated that the two of you were siblings, and he obviously hadn’t known. I don’t know literally anything else.”

If Leia wasn’t looking so drawn and wasn’t holding a baby in her arms Han was pretty sure that she would have leapt from the bed and started up pacing. “That’s absurd, our father was a Jedi.”

“He seemed pretty sure on the matter,” Han said lightly.

“But-”

“Look, princess, you weren’t around for everything before—and don’t get me wrong, I wasn’t around for a lot of it either—but I’ve been near enough people who were. The biggest player in the Separatists used to be a Jedi, but he had...fallen, is how I think they put it. Turned away from the Jedi teachings. I don’t think it’s a reach to say that the same could have happened to your birth father.”

“All of the terrible things that Vader has done…”

“I know, Leia.”

She curled the pup closer to her chest, the baby making soft snuffling sounds as she readjusted.

“We’re just going to wait until Vader tells us what he’s going to do with us, then?”

“Look, I get that’s a shitty plan but I don’t have anything better. Luke’s not going to be moving for a few days, at least, and you’re hardly doing great. That’s not even mentioning the pups, or how we’re going to get to Chewie and the droids.”

She hated this, but Han was right. Whether Vader was mistaken or not, or if he was planning on letting them go or doing something horrible to them for their information on the Resistance _((out of date, after the amount of time they’d spent stranded here))_ waiting would be their best bet.

Of course, the little girls sleepily basking in their parent’s scents made the decision easier.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Edits made 12/14/20


	2. Part 2

Vader nearly left Bespin with the nine troopers that he had allowed to remain with him. 

He didn’t know what he would tell his ~~_depur_~~ master, but he would figure it out later. He wanted to leave the son that he thought was dead and the daughter he didn’t know he had and their newborns _((his grandchildren, he had grandchildren))_ in peace. He would even divert Boba Fett from going after that Han Solo, Stars knew Vader was one of the only people who the bounty hunter might actually listen to.

But he didn’t do that.

The small spark of light that had been burned and warped and buried for so long had come to resurface. The Emperor had been lying to him for so many years, had twisted and morphed Vader’s very reality until he couldn’t remember what was real and what wasn’t. 

Why, exactly, had every Force user needed to be put to an abrupt end? Why did the entire Order decide to leave the Republic at once, all except Anakin? There had been no decree from the High Council that he’d remembered, no whispers of a coup. They couldn’t have kept _that_ from him, could they have?

Even if the Jedi had turned from the Republic as one, the clone troopers had been loyal to their commanders and unrest against a Republic that treated them like cannon fodder had been high. Surely some would have retained their forced loyalties to the Republic, but not all. His troops wouldn’t have, he knew that much. Neither would Obi-Wan’s, or Yoda’s, or Plo Koon’s, or Windu’s, or the vast majority of the veteran troops that made up most of the active military. 

Then why had they all, unanimously, turned their weapons on the Jedi that they served under? No hesitation, just hundreds of brilliant lights in the Force snuffed out simultaneously.

Vader thought of his wife. 

She had meant so much to him that any thought of her usually sent him into agony, but with the thought of the children she had given him—the children who were _alive_ —there was something more there. Memories of a...of a time before the anguish. Memories of plans for after the war, of her soft lips and eyes turned upward, of life energy cradled so preciously inside of her. Happy memories.

Vader had been unhappy for so long he had forgotten what it was to feel something else. He’d forgotten _how_ he had once felt for the people that he had loved. That sort of love….he began to doubt that they could have ever betrayed him. Vader knew that with feelings like that he would never have been able to, himself. 

But maybe he had.

It made him sick to think about—all of it, from the poor clones who hadn’t asked for any of it, to the doubts he had for his own behavior—but he had to think of at least part of it. Namely his children.

What was he going to do about them? He couldn’t kill them. He _couldn’t_. The only other option that the Emperor would allow would be getting them to join him.

Leia would never allow herself to become that. Leia, who he tortured for information not four years ago, who had refused to break. Leia whose _planet_ he’d stood by and allowed to be _destroyed_. Leia who was named for the great krayt dragons _((the mighty one, the unfettered—Padmé may not have known why Anakin had favored the name or why he so quickly dismissed it for their first child, but she had still listened))_. Leia who was so like her mother, beautiful and strong willed and stubborn. 

Leia who was free.

Would Luke come with Vader?

Luke who had hair like the twin suns and eyes the bright blue of the desert sky in the daylight _((the vast sky that had always promised possibility, a little piece of the hope-that-lay-in-the-horizon))_. Luke who burned so brightly and purely in the Force it nearly burned. Luke who grew up like Anakin had, in the dirt and dust and sand. Luke, who lived with a slave’s name on a planet plagued by slavery. Luke who Vader knew so precious little else about.

Luke whose very name encompassed _everything_ it meant to be _free_.

Of course they wouldn’t join him. 

_((Vader didn’t allow himself to examine why_ ** _freedom_** _was the key to all of it. Didn’t want to know that for himself, didn’t want to remember the thin, unnecessary chain that crossed his throat.))_

But he still had to talk to them.

He didn’t sweep down the halls with purposeful speed like he usually might, going slow and pausing beside the stormtroopers guarding the makeshift prison. Stalling.

“What are your names, troopers?”

The two troopers turned their helmets in just the way that Vader could recognize the _panicked-shocked-incredulous_ looks that they were exchanging without the need of the Force. He’d spent most of his life surrounded by helmets that looked like that, or near enough.

“EM-0933, sir,” said the one on the left.

“NR-4342, sir,” said the other one, a beat later.

“I asked for names, troopers, not numbers.”

They seemed even more taken aback than before. Vader could tell that the only reason the one on the left hadn’t rocked back a step was that she caught herself last second with all the training she had undoubtedly gone through, to be permitted to work so closely with him. He wondered if it was the Emperor or just high command in general that made sure Vader was almost exclusively working with the military-academy troopers rather than the volunteers.

The one on the right showed surprising bravery when they spoke up, tightly at attention. “Name’s Crick, sir.”

“And yours?” Vader asked the first.

She hesitated for a long moment. “I-I don’t have one, sir.”

Vader remembered, suddenly, the clones. Only the shinies hadn’t had names, or the strange few who had felt no need. They had been so few and far between, though. The clones had owned nothing. They had not gotten a salary, had been given so few allowances. Even the things that they might be able to call their own _technically_ hadn’t belonged to them—not their own armor, not their own blasters, not their own bodies. But they did own their names. It was something that most of them had held close and dear.

“Are you allowed?”

“S-Sir?” the stormtrooper asked, faltering as he turned to face her.

“Are you allowed to have names of your own?” he clarified. This wasn’t helping him avoid the anxieties of his children, only a few hallways away. It was twisting something _else_ within his chest, tighter and tighter and he spoke.

“Not officially, sir,” Crick said. “It’s discouraged, but not stopped.”

Vader turned away. He needed to leave these two, needed to forget about soldiers with the same face but different scars and tattoos and haircuts and paint on their armor, different scents and Force signatures, even different castes even if all were supposed to be betas. Thousands of individuals treated like droids, like _slaves_ , like ammunition for a pointless war. 

_((Because it had been pointless, so pointless. Palpatine had been the Sith all along and he had been pulling the strings on either side. No matter what Vader thought about the Jedi, the clones had done_ **_nothing_** _wrong. Neither had the droids, manufactured with just enough sentience that Anakin felt twinges of regret each time he struck them down. None of them asking for what they had been sent into.))_

“You should be allowed to have names,” he muttered to himself as he left. They probably heard him, but he didn’t care. 

He had been among the ones without names, back when he was Anakin. 

Skywalker was known as a slave name on Tatooine. It, like many others, was derived from _Amatakka_ legends. It was a mark that, in some maybe-not-so-distant past, one of your ancestors had been stripped from their family name. They might have been taken from their family so young that they had no memories of it, or had rejected the name that had been passed down to them by the ones that had been supposed to love them and sold them instead.

Vader didn’t know if it was his grandmother or some great distant ancestor from the times when _depur_ first walked Tatooine’s sands, but he knew that someone had their name taken away in his direct ancestry. Knew that they hadn’t taken kindly to it, just like every other slave that bore a name like Darklighter or Whitesun or Moonspinner. Had named themselves, because everyone deserves a name.

The clones had deserved names, even when the nature of their existence denied them the family name of _Fett_ , had boiled them down to a string of letters and numbers. They had been encouraged by many of the Jedi to find names of their own, even if they weren’t family names, a singular name to give them a proper identity. The Jedi had all made efforts to call the troopers by the names they chose, even when they all seemed to fuse into one giant sea of ever-shifting Force signatures. So many troopers had been under his command, so many replacing those that died, until _they_ died and someone else came along to replace _them_.

Why hadn’t Vader realized that the stormtroopers under his command were similarly deserving? When had he dismissed their similarities, forgotten the affection he’d held for his former troops? What had compelled him to unthinkingly call out for the troopers by rank or a “you, there” rather than asking after names? Why had it taken him so long to realize his mistake?

A lone trooper was waiting at the bend in the hall, far enough distance that the two at the door of the infirmary wouldn’t be able to hear. The commander, then, wishing to speak to Vader about their plan of action or some such nonsense, too cautious to seek him out herself. 

No, not nonsense. She was looking out for her troops. Wanted to know if it was possible to rotate sleep schedules and meal times, if she needed to insist on backup for their workload, or if they would be on their way soon enough. That wasn’t nonsense, especially not when Vader was the only one with the information.

He slowed his pace, clearly allowing the commander to fall into step beside him and begin speaking with him.

“Lord Vader, I fear that only two squadrons are unmaintainable.”

“You have two troopers on each door?” he asked.

“Yes, and the other squad is on rotating rest, but-”

“Then what is the issue?”

“Forgive me sir, but any shift in pattern is going to devastate us. As it is, rotating eights are going to be quite harsh on the troops for a prolonged period.”

“We shouldn’t be here for much longer,” Vader said. “Another two days, tops. Will the troops be able to handle it?”

The commander’s Force signature pinged with shock at the lack of condescension in Vader’s tone. “Of-of course, sir.”

“Good. Make sure they have access to caf if they want it.”

She nodded dumbly, about to fall back when Vader asked for her name.

“I-my name, sir?” she asked nervously.

“I have yet to catch it,” he confirmed.

“It’s Kie, sir.”

“Commander Kie, you are relieved until the next eight cycle begins.”

“Th-thank you, sir.”

He left her standing in the middle of the hall, undoubtedly gaping at him from beneath her bucket helmet. 

He didn’t ask for the names of the two standing guard at the medical room’s doors. He would on his way out, if he had the ability after speaking to his children. He would learn every one of the nine trooper’s names before they left this planet.

~~~

Luke was awake when Darth Vader came into the room.

Leia was, too, fussing over her daughter in her arms the next bed over. Han had finally succumbed to exhaustion after what might’ve been days—Luke had been in and out for a bit, he wasn’t quite sure how much time had past since he left Dagobah, but it _had_ to have been days—slumped half on Luke’s bed and half curled in the chair.

“Vader,” Luke said. “I hear I should’ve been calling you father?”

The man’s presence was dark and oppressive in the little medical room, but...not as dark as Luke was used to from him. It was a lighter shade of gray, if the Force could really be described in the words that Luke had, or like a light trying to breach great storm clouds.

“Oh please,” Leia told Luke, tensing up like a snake gearing up to strike. “He doesn’t have the _right_ to that title.”

“I apologize for your planet,” Vader said.

Leia scoffed, arms curling her pup tighter to her chest. Luke recognized the slight tremor of her hands.

“Have you come to kill us?” Luke asked, pushing himself off the pillows despite the aching of his abdomen.

“No,” Vader said.

“Then why are you here?” Leia snapped.

Vader was silent save for the rasping of his breathing for a long moment. It was hard to tell with the helmet, but he thought he might be looking at the baby in Leia’s arm and trying to see around Han _((still asleep, and unless Vader started acting threatening Luke wasn’t going to wake him))_ to the cradle that held Luke’s daughter.

“Their names?” Vader asked, finally.

“That’s none-” Leia began.

“Breha Organa,” Luke said. “For Leia’s mother. My daughter I named after my aunt. _Bah-ruh Ekkreth_.”

The _Amatakka_ caused a flinch both visibly and across the Force, or maybe it was the name itself. _Ekkreth_ , of course, was the family name. It was a name Vader obviously hadn’t gone by in years, in the language he might not have heard for even longer. It was the name of the shapeshifter god, who did all they could to free those in chains, mostly through double-crossing _depur._

 _Beru_ meant singer, as in the people who sang over the sounds of undermedicated surgery, done in the small scraps of time where a slave could be missed. Though _beru_ just meant singer, singers meant hope. The type of hope that was like the desert sky, and all the potential that came with it—both the bright blue of the horizon and the deep indigo blanket that cradled the stars. There were so many words for hope in _Amatakka_. The hope-that-lay-in-the-horizon was a little wistful, a little sad. Freedom could be just over the next dune, just beyond the stars, just a little further, but almost always out of reach. A singer allowed there to be hope at all, though.

“ _A good name_ ,” Vader said, in quiet and slow _Amatakka_ , like he was trying out the sounds for the first time. Maybe it was the first time, in the suit. That couldn’t have always been part of him. He was humanoid, just as Luke and Leia were.

“ _Your troops killed her_ ,” Luke responded. “ _She was a Singer. Many slaves will remain chained because she is gone._ ”

“ _A Singer…_ ”

“ _Yes,_ ” Luke said, ignoring the way Leia looked at him like he had begun to speak in a language she’d never heard, much less knew he spoke, because that was exactly what he was doing. Luke was more focused on the way that Vader seemed to waver in the Force. This conversation was important—critically so. “ _She taught me how to Sing, as her father-in-law’s wife taught her._ ”

“ _My mother...your grandmother taught me, too, long ago,_ ” Vader said.

Luke wasn’t sure if it was the Force or not, but he could see it. A boy not dissimilar looking from himself—sandy blonde hair, blue eyes, dressed in the rags and robes of the poor and enslaved people of Tatooine. He would be small, like Luke always had been, despite the height that he claimed now. He was only ten when he was taken away by the Jedi, afterall, plenty of time to catch up on growth with proper food. 

The boy would have been next to Shmi—the woman so much younger than the few holostills that Luke’s Uncle Owen had pushed into one of the filing room’s drawers, but no less aged. That’s what the sands did to people, it aged and abraded until there was nothing left but dust. But Shmi had been young, when her son was born, so it wouldn’t have taken all that much from her, yet. Only some lines on her face, maybe some gray in her hair. 

Shmi would Sing as Aunt Beru had, all firm and assured yet soft and hopeful, like dura-steel and clouds. The boy would sing, too, adding his voice and his hands, deft and quick and most importantly small, as they cut the chips out of the hopeful runaways. Without the proper network and base—like what her later husband Cliegg, and his son Owen, would provide—they would have to send the runaways off with little else to offer but the knowledge that at least their leg wouldn’t be blown off halfway across the market square.

Afterwards, maybe, Shmi would help the boy clean the blood from his hands with sand and bantha milk because there was no way that a pair of slaves had much if any water. She would promise him that they were doing their part to make other lives better, and that one day they too would have their turn. The boy would grin, and she would ruffle his hair and call him his name in the language they held close, and send him off to work.

“ _When did you stop Singing?_ ” Luke asked Vader because it couldn’t have just ended after he joined the Jedi.

There was no way that it would have, unless the Jedi were much stricter than Luke understood. No _Amatakka_ could leave behind slavery and not continue to help—not when slavery was everywhere in the Outer Rim, and thriving in some places in the Mid-Rim, and underground throughout even the Core. There was no way a _Jedi_ who would have seen these people every day—an _Amatakka boy_ who knew what and where to look for—could allow for it to happen.

“When your mother died,” Vader said, in Basic, and Leia scowled. She might not have known what they were speaking about, but a mention of their birth mother—from the mouth of the man who was a monster in her eyes, and nothing _but_ a monster—was sure to infuriate her.

“Is that also when you became _depukrekta?_ ” Luke asked. Repairer of the chains. A slave who became a master themselves.

Vader was silent.

“Is it?” Luke asked, genuinely curious. “Or are you not _depukrekta?”_

The man’s fist clenched and shook, and he near vibrated in the Force, teetering on the edge of _something_.

“ _Did you ever leave your chains behind?”_ Luke asked, and something impossibly, horribly Light rose in Vader’s Darkness. Horrible, because of the openness of it, of the acknowledgement that he had next to no autonomy over himself, of the bitterness and shattered hope and rawness that spoke of it being a recent discovery. Horrible because of his acceptance of it. 

Luke reclined back, feeling for all of one moment the sufferings of a lifetime in chains. A lifetime of constant hope, misunderstandings of perceived freedom, only to have the terrible realization that freedom had never truly been known at all. Trapped under a new _depur_ , stuck in the manacle of a life-support suit, without any horizon left in sight.

“I’m sorry,” he told the man who had killed thousands, and meant it.

He could tell that Leia wanted to speak—wanted to ask what language the two had been speaking, and what they had been talking about, likely demand to know what was worth apologizing for—but she held her tongue.

“ _All that’s left for me is dukkra_ ,” Vader said. The Force was bitter, resigned, and tainted with self hatred, all of the emotion that Vader’s voice couldn’t portray.

“ _Dukkra ba dukkra_ ,” Luke returned with surprising fervor.

 _Dukkra_ could mean freedom, or it could mean death. Usually used to describe the freedom that one could only truly find in death, unless it was in the phrase _dukkra ba dukkra_. Freedom or death. The type of manic journey to freedom that only the most desperate would attempt: stowing away on a departing ship, cutting out the chip without a practiced Singer, or the Desert Walk. It didn’t matter what kind of _dukkra_ was found, in those situations.

Vader had done terrible things. So many terrible things.

The least he could do, Luke figured, was try to make up for it.

~~~

“What language was that?” Leia asked, after Vader had more stumbled than swept from the room. “What were you talking about?”

Her brother looked like he might cry, but she couldn’t tell if it would be caused by anger or genuine sadness. Her daughter, little Breha, fussed in her sleep in Leia’s arms, reacting to the scents in the air.

“What do you know of Tatooine?” Luke asked.

“I know it’s a desert planet,” she said, slowly, carefully. “I know that it’s the closest thing the Hutt’s have to a power center.”

Luke laughed, bitter. “It’s miserable there. There’s two suns and it’s so hot that only the poles are habitable, and still everyone goes inside at the height of the day because of the intensity. The nights are freezing and the beasts there are vicious. The closest thing to an honest living that you can make there is farming _water_ from the air.”

Leia stayed quiet. He was building up to something.

“I-my name. Luke. It’s a word from the language of my people. Of-of our people. Our father’s people. _Lukka_ is one of the words for freedom, and it is given to the first freeborn in a family.”

“The first freeborn?” she asked, despite thinking that she knew, a sinking sort of weight in her chest.

Luke nodded. “The first born without chains. I’d always...I grew up with my-our father’s stepbrother. He and his father had never been...they weren’t _Amatakka_. But my aunt was, she was one of the ones that my uncle and my grandfather helped free. Our grandmother was like her, too, on the Freedom Trail with my grandfather until he’d saved enough to buy her. She was able to help so many more people once she got out of the slave quarters in the city.”

“They were all slaves,” Leia said, not asked, but still needing to hear it for sure.

“Yes,” Luke said. “For a long time. Generations. I don’t know any further back than my grandmother’s mother, and even that only vaguely, but I know. My aunt’s mother hardly knew her mother, but she was certain of it, too.”

Leia thought of what she knew of her family—adoptive and biological both. Her father had been a senator for decades. Her mother had been born into the royal line, and queen of Alderaan since before the Clone War. Her birth mother had been elected queen at a young age, and senator not long after her term ended. She had thought her birth father was a Jedi, from humble origin. She thought her brother was the same, a farmer boy from the Outer Rim.

“The slaves on Tatooine, we call ourselves _Amatakka_ , and our language-” he cut himself off with a curse. “We don’t _talk_ about it with outsiders. The _depur_ , the slave masters, they’re not supposed to know. The only reason my uncle even _sort of_ knew parts of the culture was because his wife and stepmother.”

“You don’t need to tell me,” Leia said. She longed for it, though, a piece of culture that she could belong to that wasn’t on the brink of extinction, scattered throughout the scarce survivors who were off planet when their home was blown up. It wasn’t like she would understand it, though, no real ties but some blood and a few years of time spent with Luke.

Luke carded his finger’s through Han’s hair, the alpha shifting the tiniest bit closer in his sleep. “It’s okay, I want to tell you. Maybe not all at once, but...you deserve to know it.”

Leia watched her daughter, for a while.

“Is that what you were talking about, with him?” she asked, finally.

Luke hummed for a moment, like he was tired and had to wake himself up before he could form actual words. “Yeah. He said...I always thought he was free, Leia. I thought I was the first freeborn, from a freed man, but…he isn’t free. I don’t think he ever really was.”

~~~

“He’s just letting you _go!?”_ Lando hissed as they “escorted” Han, Chewie, Leia, Luke, the babies, and the droids to the Millennium Falcon. “And he’s just _leaving!?”_

“Yeah, I kriffing guess,” Han said, scowling as one of the bags he was carrying slipped from his shoulder to his elbow. He tried to get it back in place, but could do little when one of his daughters were cradled in his other arm.

“This doesn’t even make _sense_ -” Lando groaned into their hands. Darth Vader didn’t just-just-surrender! Not that this situation could be called a surrender—it wasn’t as if Cloud City had any sort of defenses, not against Darth Vader and however many stormtroopers he could command at any given moment. Perhaps it was different, since Luke and Leia were his children, but that didn’t mean that he would just forgive Lando for hiding them and let them _go_.

“It doesn’t have to make sense,” Luke said sagely from Chewie’s arms, where he had been swept up barely two minutes into hobbling along with the group. “Vader is only a man.”

Lando suppressed an incredulous laugh. Wise words from a barely-twenty-two-year old omega kid, but from what little Lando had seen of him he was just like that sometimes. It had something to do with the Force or whatever the hell it was that the Jedi used to use to make themselves legends, even after over two decades of having been all but wiped out.

“He asked what we wanted him to do,” Leia said, holding the other infant and nothing else. “So I told him to stop being evil.”

“I clarified that she meant to leave you and your city alone and let us go back to the Rebellion,” Luke said with a grin.

“And stop working for the bantha-kriffing, son of a Hutt, asshole emperor,” Leia said.

“We’ll see if he follows through on that one,” Luke said cheerfully.

Lando didn’t know how to respond to that.

Later, when the Millennium Falcon was mostly ready for takeoff, wherever it was that they were planning on going, Lando managed to get a moment alone with Han.

“Where’re you headed?” they asked.

“Nearest Rebel base we can find,” Han said. “Then after that there’s some business that I’ve got to take care of on Tatooine. Think Luke has to go there, too.”

Lando studied the ground.

“You just gonna stay here, in your city?”

“For a bit,” they said, slowly. “I think...you should give me a call. Before you go to Tatooine. I might be more useful to the rebellion keeping your asses out of trouble than here in the middle of nowhere.”

~~~

KL-8909 had seldom worked with Lord Vader before, but she—like everyone—had heard the horror stories.

He wasn’t _bad_ to work under—it was only the highest commander that would be killed upon making mistakes, which was a marked difference from some of the other people that she’d worked under—but he was the one that was sent to do the dirtiest of work.

KL-8909, secretly _Kie_ to herself and two long-lost friends, had expected to die for either messing up in her commanding or by the mission being too dangerous. She didn’t expect Vader to care—why would he, when stormtroopers were so easy for him to replace—just like no higher command had ever cared before. 

Then he asked for her name.

He’d asked for everyone’s name, of the eight other troopers that remained on the little floating city after he sent the rest away. EM-0933, JF-7734, HW-6239, MS-3271, NR-4322, NR-3874, FP-5164, and BZ-4858. Four of them had names—JF-7734 had always been Chardy in the barracks, MS-3271 was Squirm to anyone who asked, NR-4322 and NR-3874 had called each other Crick and Mania since they’d first been assigned and mostly stuck together, a few years back. The others didn’t ever have names, not that they remembered, but they also had never been _asked_ before.

Kie walked into the little barracks they had set up, on the second day they’d been in the city, and she’d found BZ-4858 crying his eyes out over the simple courtesy that every citizen of the Republic except born-and-trained stormtroopers had been given. He was also exhausted from an eight-hour and mortified that he hadn’t a name to give. Mania was trying to cheer him up by telling him to pick a name, then, which made him all the _more_ overwhelmed.

Vader also offered them free access to caf, and asked Kie often how the troopers were doing with the rather rough schedule that they had to be on. 

He...he seemed to care, as stupid as Kie knew it sounded.

But nobody else had ever come close.

~~~

“He just let them go?” HW-6239 whispered to Chardy on the transport back to the main fleet. Vader was in his personal starcraft, as always when in transport, so it was only the nine of them troopers.

“Yeah,” Chardy answered. “I was right outside the med-room when he was talking to them. Couldn’t hear much, but the princess was yelling at him and telling him to-to be a _better person_. Then he walked out and told us we’d be leaving in the next few hours and that the prisoners were getting released.”

“Kriffing hells,” FP-5165/maybe-Hijatt-if-he-liked-the-name-enough muttered. “No one’s gonna like that.”

“Long as we don’t get the blame,” HW-6239 said morosely. It’d happened before, to xir. Almost xir entire unit had died on a deployment. Xe knew it was a trap, had realized right from the start, and tried to warn everyone—most of the other troopers had believed xir, too, even if xe was fresh from the academy—but it hadn’t mattered. The general pushed forward and almost everyone died. They were forced to retreat. Instead of the general taking the blame he had redirected it to the few remaining troopers. All of them senior troopers, except for HW-6239 and one other trooper who’d only just graduated the academy.

HW-6239 and the other newbie were the only two to avoid immediate execution.

Xe didn’t know what happened to the other trooper, didn’t even know their number or if they even had a name, but ever since then xe couldn’t stop thinking of those seven senior stormtroopers, who had survived the avoidable carnage, and were killed. Because a general didn’t want to take responsibility. Because they wouldn’t listen to xir.

_Xir fault, xir fault, xir fault._

Even if it wasn’t xir fault, not really, xe couldn’t stop thinking it.

Xe would trust Vader, the way that everyone else seemed to, when he showed they meant more than an easy means to an end.

~~~

Crick had been back from the confusing mess that was Cloud City for less than a week when they picked up on the rumors that were going around. Everyone was talking about Lord Vader. How he was _nice_ now.

He asked for troopers’ names and he _remembered_ them. He _listened_ to the commanders and captains. He gave them _breaks_ in the usual monotony of eight-on four-off four-on eight-off. He encouraged them to take their _buckets_ off when they weren’t on duty, even if they weren’t in the barracks or mess. He hadn’t risked _anyone’s_ lives more than absolutely necessary.

Crick almost didn’t believe it. If they hadn’t witnessed it themselves, on Cloud City and on the current ship that they were on, he wouldn’t have.

Lord Vader had never been...terrible. He wasn’t like most of the high command. But he was terrifying. He was outside of the military jurisdiction all together, and could get away with anything. He didn’t treat the lowly stormtroopers like much of anything, except for maybe droids designed to do what he asked, and only directed anger towards the high command, but that didn’t make him any less dangerous.

But as the weeks went on...Crick started to forget why he was dangerous.

How could a man who _remembered_ their _name_ when only a _few_ other troopers did be a danger to them? When he remembered almost _everyone’s_ names. When he said he’d put in an order for something other than ration bricks for the mess and then _did_.

Crick was on duty guarding one of the power conductors with a trooper who didn’t have a name—not _yet_ , anyways, Lord Vader said that they all should have names after all—when Vader and one of the high command walked past.

“It’s against the Emperor’s orders, sir!” the officer was insisting.

“I have better things to do than put my troops in harm's way for some petty disagreement, officer,” Vader said in a way that Crick had learned to decipher as _harsh_. 

“But, sir-” the officer protested as they rounded the corner.

The trooper next to Crick looked at them. Crick knew better than to look at her, too, it’d be too unprofessional to be caught that way, but when she asked, “Is he-is he really defying the _Emperor_ , for-”

 _"For us"_ was left unsaid. Too radical a statement, and much too hopeful at that.

Still, Crick said, “I think he might be.”

“Kriff,” the other trooper breathed, all awe and disbelief.

~~~

“I always wanted to go to Tatooine and kill that slimy slug bastard,” Vader told his children on an encrypted comm call. They didn’t talk much—what had they to talk about, with him—but he tried to update them on what he was doing. Disobeying the emperor and messing with his plans and trying to redeem himself.

He was surprised with how much loyalty the stormtroopers had to give after years of him hardly paying them a second glance. Perhaps it was because of that, that they were so loyal. All he was doing was showing them basic respect.

Troopers loyalty made it easy—so kriffing easy—to dismantle the empire one chunk at a time. In combination with the Rebellion, all they really needed was a few more pushes before it toppled.

“Tatooine,” his son said, absently patting Breha on the back as she drooled on his shoulder. “That is an excellent idea. That _depur_ deserves to die.”

~~~

They’d had a _plan_ that Han decided to fuck up by going to “settle his debt” himself. That, predictably, did not end well. Luckily he was put in carbonite rather than straight up _killed_.

Leia broke in to try and free him, got caught, and ended up as what the slave getting her “fixed up” called _decoration_. Leia’s tits were falling out of a tiny, skimpy top and the only thing that kept the rest of her modest was a tiny strip of fabric between her legs and two pieces of fabric that acted as a front and a back panel of a skirt, if said skirt had no _side_ panels.

“Your chip’ll be coming,” the slave had told her, and it felt like she was telling her the most important information in the galaxy. Like she was warning her what was to come, like she was begging her to run when she could. “Master Jabba has use for you now, and doesn’t want to wait that long for the time sedation would take.”

Leia wondered if that kindly old slave was _Amatakka_. Luke had told her most of the slaves on Tatooine were, or would eventually be, or maybe it was that they all were even the ones who didn’t know about it?

Whoever that slave woman was, Leia still ended up with a pretty gold chain ‘round her neck and on the ground before Jabba. Just a pretty thing for him to show off. He made her blood boil in her veins—made her want to start shooting and screaming and biting if she couldn’t get to a weapon.

She thought of her grandmother who neither she nor Luke met, but who Luke still knew so much about. She was born in chains and wore a collar just like the one around Leia’s neck from twelve to eighteen in a different Hutt’s stronghold, only getting out of the collar alongside her three-year-old son for the less tangible manacles of a Toydarian shop owner. Would Leia have lived her life in chains like these, had Shmi Skywalker never let her ten-year-old son leave with the Jedi? Would she have even been born, if her birth mother was from Naboo? Would Leia’s daughter have been pulled from her arms and chipped before she’d even gotten her first meal, like her birth father had been? Forced to walk around with a bomb somewhere in her body in case she ever tried to run or her master decided her too unruly to be punished with anything less?

She seethed in her ornamental status, but only because she knew her brother wasn’t far behind.

~~~

Luke was crying, and he was laughing, and he was thinking that he must be dreaming.

 _“Depur is dead! Depur is dead!”_ the slaves that had literally crawled from walls and cellars—only the _decoration_ could be seen in front of visitors, of course—cheered. _“Thank Ar-Amu, Depur is dead!”_

 _“Who are you?”_ a twi’lek girl, with eyes that were much too human shaped for her to be anything but generational _Amatakka_ , in the language of their people. She had seen what Luke had done—what Leia had done, too.

Luke laughed because he hadn’t believed in prophecies, not really, but Ar-Amu’s companion, Anakin, was supposed to kill Depur with her children the great krayt dragons. The _leias_.

 _“I am Lukka Ekkreth,”_ he told the twi’lek. _“I was raised by Beru Whitesun, and am the son of Anakin Ekkreth, who was the son of Shmi Ekkreth, brother to Leia.”_

Leia—wearing Han’s jacket over the barely-there-slave garb, collar still clamped around her neck and golden chain she’d used to strangle Jabba looped around one of her own wrists—looked over at her name.

The twi’lek gasped. _“You-and her-”_

Luke beamed and laughed and told her, _“Depur has been killed by Leia and Lukka Ekkreth, children of Anakin.”_

The twi'lek screamed, then, and yelled to the open air, so blue and wide and big and not looking nearly as far away as the horizon usually did, _“Depur has been killed by Leia and Lukka Ekkreth, children of Anakin!”_

The other _Amatakka_ noticed, of course. They clamored to ask if it was true, if the prophecy was really _true_ and Luke shouted, _“I am Lukka Ekkreth! My sister Leia killed Depur! Our father Anakin sent us here to kill him!”_

“What’d you say?” Leia yelled to him as they were both hoisted on shoulders and thanked and thanked and thanked.

“We made a prophecy come true!” Luke laughed.

~~~

Han glared suspiciously at the little holoprojector that the twins used to speak with their-with Vader.

He didn’t trust Vader, not one kriffing bit, no matter how insistent Luke was that he was _good_ now. Even Leia seemed to be swaying towards believing that Vader had changed, and maybe he had—maybe the work he was doing to the Rebellion helped, somehow—but that didn’t just _erase_ what he did.

“Bah,” Beru said solemnly, spit bubbling up on her lips.

“You said it kid,” he told her, wiping her mouth with his sleeve.

“Ah-H-a,” she shrieked more than babbled.

“Uh-huh,” he said absently, side-eyeing the way Luke was tearfully recounting the incident on Tatooine in whatever language it was he spoke, and Leia supplemented her parts in Basic whenever she was told to recount a specific thing she’d done, while feeding Breha.

If Han was crazy he might even say that Vader seemed proud, but he wasn’t crazy. It wasn’t even like Han would be able to _tell_ between the helmet and the voice modulator and the dinky holocomm.

 _((Han wouldn’t know, of course, how close that estimate was. Vader would’ve been crying right alongside Luke, had he had the tears ducts left for it._ **_Anakin_** _would have been crying and laughing and thanking the stars for his children and the end of tyranny on his people.))_

~~~

“Do you...do you think we’re committing treason,” formerly FP-5165—then Hijatt, then Atonn, then Tyrdang, then Gu’kik, then finally _Bucket_ —whispered.

HW-6239, now known as _Fault_ , snorted. “I think we’ve been committing treason since Cloud City,” xe told him.

“Kriffing shit,” Bucket said as they watched half of a fleet crash into the other half of their fleet. The ships had all been evacuated of stormtroopers, and a few of the higher officers that were willing to properly surrender, but the rest insisted on trying to save the fleet. In any other situation that might’ve gotten them a promotion, had they succeeded. Instead it just made them dead. If any survived Vader would execute them himself.

It was _their_ fault that so many stormtroopers were dead. Not Fault’s. Never Fault’s. _Not xir fault, not xir fault, **not** xir fault_. They deserved worse than this. Fault was going to be there when Vader destroyed them—all of them, not just those officers. Xe wanted to be there when the Emperor _died_.

~~~

“I think I can kill the Emperor, soon. The new Death Star is close to being fully sabotaged by troopers loyal to me, and he’s coming to see it,” Vader told his children. Several troopers were with him, but despite the obviousness of the treason he was committing none of them said a word about it.

“I’m coming with you,” Luke said, immediately.

“You cannot-”

“I’m coming, too!” Leia interrupted.

“Absolutely not,” he said, horrified.

“And why not?” Luke demanded.

“You have practically no training, for one,” he said.

“I have enough training!” Luke insisted. “Ben Kenobi showed me some things, and I was with that old troll for _months_ -”

“While pregnant,” Vader said, and if he had functioning vocal cords it would’ve been flat and dry as sandpaper. He still managed that affect surprisingly well. “And no one to spar with—no practical fighting skills at all, hardly.”

Luke scowled, “I’m _coming with_.”

“Yeah, just let us know when you’re heading out,” Leia told Vader with a sort of cheerfulness that reminded him painfully of Ahsoka, knowing she was pissing him off and was going to get away with it. “We’ll meet you there.”

“No,” he said.

She leaned closer, baring all her teeth in a way that made it look like a smile. Padmé had used to do that, when she was trying to make rich old bastards listen to her. Leia had that same sharpness, with all the more bite that was more _him_ than Padmé when she said, “You don’t want to know what’ll happen if you don’t let us come.”

Then she _ended the call._

Vader would’ve sighed if he could.

Mania and Chardy started laughing at him, from their posts at the controls. Kie was smiling. Even Fault looked like xe were suppressing a grin.

“I’ll get the details hammered out for you, sir,” Crick promised, around a cough that sounded suspiciously fake.

“Thank you,” he said, conceding to the inevitable.

~~~

Leia peered around Vader’s arm, looking for what was hopefully the smoldering remains of a _piece of shit_ Emperor.

“Is he dead?” Luke asked, peering around the other side of their...of their father. Leia was okay to call him that, now. Not to his _face_ but in her head it was fine.

“Yes,” said Vader, and for once Leia thought that she knew exactly how he felt in the Force that she apparently had and couldn’t really use. He sounded as if the weight of an entire planet had been lifted from his shoulders, and even though the vocorder showed hardly any inflection, she was sure of it.

Luke cursed in Huttese then started to laugh. “He’s dead.”

Leia felt her knee give out from under her, and her father caught her by the waist. 

For her entire life she’d been under the thumb of the Emperor. _Literally her entire life_ she had woken up in a galaxy that she knew she wasn’t safe in, not as the daughter of a leader of the Rebellion. Not in a galaxy run by _him_. She’d been six when she’d first done work for the Rebellion, however unintentional her involvement had been. She was eight when she realized that she was probably going to die trying to dismantle all that man built. 

Now she had the chance to rebuild it back that way it should’ve been.

“Leia?” her father asked, Luke going through what was likely a similar thought process as her by clutching at his hair—though maybe less intense. He’d known he was one of the only chances to save the galaxy, and that was rough, but he had never felt endangered by the man personally. 

Leia had gone to _parties_ with the Emperor in attendance. She’d kissed his bony, gnarled, papery hands and curtsied before his throne and faked a genuine smile when he told her what a fine young lady she was growing into. She’d suppressed her tremors and stopped herself from pissing herself and kept Rebellion plans tucked up her skirt while doing so. For her, the Emperor had a face and he was the face she thought of when she thought of her death.

But now...her-her children got to grow up in a galaxy without _Emperor Sheev Palpaltine_.

They’d _won_.

~~~

“Where are you going to go?” Luke asked his father. “Where are all your troopers-”

“The troopers will go live normal lives, the moment they are no longer needed,” Vader said.

“I asked about you,” Luke said. He was absolutely exhausted. Killing the emperor was difficult, all things considering. They were lucky Leia was there with her two favorite blasters and Vader hated him rather than served him, like the bastard thought. He just wanted to see the babies, and curl up with Han and Leia and even Chewie and the droids, if they could get Threepio to shut up long enough to not wake up the pups.

“I’ve got to clean up my mistakes,” Vader said.

“And after that?” Luke asked.

Through the Force, Luke almost thought he could see his father smile.

“I’d like to get to know my children. Better. And see my grandchildren.”

Luke felt like something had unclenched in his chest. “That sounds like a great idea.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wrote 2.5k of this...literally tonight. Um, fictional angst over real world angst? My country is about to have Civil War 2.0 in under 24 hours and I didn't have anything better to due despite the massive amount of reading I have to get done before Wednesday afternoon? Ahahahaha I'm doing great.
> 
> For real though, I'm so proud of how this turned out!
> 
> Edits made 12/14/20

**Author's Note:**

> I don't really focus a lot of my attention on original trilogy stuff, so I apologize for the likely OOC-ness of a lot of the characters. Inspiration for this has hit me hard in a few bursts, the latest being in the past couple of days.
> 
> What did you all think? I have the starts of part two, which will be Vader's reaction and the conversation that he's going to be having with the twins. I think I'll mostly be giving more of an overview of how exactly he helps take down the empire, similar to how I glossed over a lot of the stuff at the beginning of part one. Also! The girls get a name reveal.
> 
> ((For those that might be confused, in-between refers to those with both genitalia. I use this as a way of explaining alpha females and omega males. "Male" children will present as either beta male or alpha male, "female" children will present as either omega female or beta female. As with in-betweens, this happens around fourteen. I use this method of explaining the caste system so that my head hurts a little less over the biology of all of it.
> 
> You can find my tumblr [here](https://omegros.tumblr.com)! Pop on over for a chat :)
> 
> Edits to chapter 1 made on May 4, 2020


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